QandO

July 13, 2004

The trial lawyer gravy train
Posted by Dale Franks

Sturat Taylor's National Journal column asks an important question:

What are the chances that a Kerry-Edwards administration would slow down the trial-lawyer lobby's gravy train? Or that it would reform a medical-malpractice system in which (according to the best estimates) 80 percent of claimants are not victims of malpractice and over 90 percent of actual victims receive no compensation -- a system that has added as much as $2,000 to the cost of delivering a baby in Florida and has forced some good doctors out of lawsuit-plagued specialties such as obstetrics and surgery? Or that it would curb the kinds of lawsuits that punish people and companies that have done nothing wrong; that force New York City's taxpayers to shell out over $500 million a year in tort awards and settlements (including $6.3 million to a pedestrian hit by a drunk driver who disregarded signs and mounted a curb that the jury later found to be too low); that deter development of better contraceptives and other liability-prone products; and that suffuse our society with a fear of litigation, evidenced by the removal of monkey bars and jungle gyms from public playgrounds and the reluctance of schools to discipline unruly students or fire incompetent teachers?

The plaintiff's bar in this country is a complete disgrace. It has spawned a type of irresponsible and pernicious litigiousness. The result is that money is sucked out of our pockets every day to compensate for the the legal costs added to the price of products we buy. It's driving doctors out of medicine because they can't afford the malpractice insurance premiums.

And guess where Edwards gets his big-money donations?

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